This volume, in honour of the great historian Emmet Larkin, is organized around the two themes that have shaped his work on the Catholic Church in modern Ireland -- the role of the church in the creation of the modern Irish state, and the role of the church in defining a distinctive Irish national identity through the "devotional revolution". The various chapters explore different themes -- political, social, ecclesiastical, and literary -- but are united by their common engagement with aspects of Larkin"s work on Irish culture and consciousness between the late eighteenth century and the present.